The Mystery Of The Moon

Let's talk about the moon. We've all seen it, we all know what it looks like. But have you ever stopped to consider how strange it really is?

For one thing, the moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth to create the conditions for life to thrive. It helps to stabilise our planet's rotation and maintain its climate. But what's even more intriguing is the fact that the moon seems to be resonating like a bell.

That's right, you heard me. The moon appears to be vibrating at a specific frequency, almost as if it's hollow. And that's not the only unusual thing about it. The moon is made up of a unique combination of materials that don't match anything else in our solar system. And its orbit is also very precise, almost as if it was intentionally placed there.

Now, the current theory is that the moon formed from debris left over after a giant impact between the Earth and another object. And that's a plausible theory, certainly. But there are holes in that theory. For one thing, the materials that make up the moon are very different from what we would expect from such a collision. And the moon's precise orbit is also difficult to explain using the current theory.

So, what if there's more to the story? What if the moon is actually the product of an extraterrestrial civilization? Maybe it was deliberately placed in orbit around the Earth for a reason. Maybe it was created to stabilise our planet and make it habitable. Maybe it was even designed to send us a message.

I'm not saying that's definitely the case, of course. But it's worth considering the possibility. Let's keep exploring the mysteries of the universe and keep an open mind about what we might discover. Who knows what other secrets are waiting to be uncovered?

What Is Time (Part I)

So what is time, really? We could start with the standard definition, of course: “the fourth dimension… a measure in which events can be ordered from the past, through the present, into the future… also the measure of durations of events and the intervals between them.” But does that definition truly capture the essence of time? Perhaps not.

As Einstein once remarked, “[time] is not at all what it seems. It does not flow in only one direction, and the future exists simultaneously with the past. The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” So what are we to make of that? Is time a mere fabrication of our minds, a construct that we impose on the world around us? Or is it a more fundamental aspect of reality, something that transcends our limited human perception?

It’s worth considering the role of our senses in all this. Our experience of the external physical world comes to us via one of the twenty-one or so-known human senses. But these senses are both fallible and ever so slightly delayed. For instance, it takes approximately eighty milliseconds for the sensation of touch to travel from the fingertip, through the nervous system and into the brain to be decoded and interpreted. The same logic applies to all our other senses. We experience everything about eighty milliseconds in the past. So are we ever truly living in the ‘here and now’?

And what of the units we use to measure time — seconds, hours, days, months, years? Who came up with these terms, and why do we use them? The answers may surprise you. But one thing is clear: whether we’re talking about the passage of a single millisecond or the arc of an entire year, time remains one of the most enigmatic and fascinating phenomena in the universe.

The concepts of a second, hour, day, month, and year all flow together into an inscrutable river of moments, oscillating and multiplying like subatomic particles within an atom.

Days and years come to us by way of the great celestial dance between the Earth, Sun, and Moon, but they’re all subject to the slight distortions of human measurement, a cosmic foxtrot that never quite syncs up to the beat.

The Moon’s gravitational pull ebbs and flows like a quarter-daily tidal wave, while the lunar cycle is the rough inspiration for our man-made months. But why are these units so inconsistently shaped and numerically diverse?

A minute passes in sixty seconds, but why sixty? Could it have been fifty or seventy-five? These questions might cause a ripple in the mind, but the answer lies in the vibration of a caesium 133 atom. A second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 oscillations within one of these atoms — naturally!

Who first dreamed up these chronometric units, and what were their intentions? Perhaps they were scholars, scientists, or philosophers, trying to impose an order onto the turbulent flow of existence. Or maybe they were just folks looking for a way to kill time.

The notion of time as we know it today is a purely human invention. The minute is a derivative of the Latin word ‘minuta’, meaning short note, and has no natural equivalent. The concept of hours can be traced back to the Babylonians and was later adopted by the Greeks. However, these hours varied in length, as daylight hours changed with the seasons. It was only in the fourth century in Europe that standard, or sidereal hours, were established, and even as late as the sixteenth century, hours could still be irregular in duration.

The week is thought to have originated from the lunar cycle, segmented into four discreet seven-day periods. Later, the seven-day Jewish week and the spread of Christianity cemented the week as a human convention. In Old English, the word for week was ‘wece’, which means change of direction, while the Old Norse word ‘vika’ means changing of oars, both accurately conveying the impact of the week on the human mind.

The week forces us into a monotonous routine, repeating itself predictably every seven days. It is also intimately linked with work and trains us to live our lives to a routine. But what if all days were equal? How would that change the way we approach work and leisure time? These questions are worth pondering.

Next, the month, the messiest of all man-made units of time. It’s a real head-scratcher, isn’t it? The Moon orbits the Earth thirteen times a year, giving us thirteen neat lunar months of twenty-eight days each. Simple, right? So why do we have twelve lopsided months of varying lengths? Thirty days for some, thirty-one for others, and poor February only gets twenty-eight, except in leap years. Why is September the ninth month, rather than the seventh, and why is October the tenth month, not the eighth? It’s a right kerfuffle.

And let’s not forget that the weeks don’t even line up with the months, except for February, which always seems to get the short end of the stick. Imagine if the centimetres on a ruler were all different lengths. Ludicrous, isn’t it? So why do we put up with this ugly asymmetry in our calendar? Why do we have a calendar at all?

Well, the answer lies in the word calendar itself. It comes from the Latin word “calends,” which was used to describe the monthly payment of debts and bills. Coincidence? I think not. Throughout history, calendars have been a powerful tool used by the ruling classes to control and tax the common folk. Everything from meetings to paychecks to leisure time is governed by the calendar and clock. It’s a rhythm of life that we’ve all grown accustomed to, but it’s a predictable and artificial pattern created by man, primarily with the aim of control and the motivation of greed.

The Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, is the most widely used calendar in the world today. It’s a refinement of the Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, which was itself a refinement of an earlier Roman calendar that had only ten months and started with Martius (now known as March). More months were added over time for various reasons, eventually bringing the total to thirteen. With the lunar cycle of thirteen months, it would have been perfect to stop there. But Julius Caesar had other ideas, didn’t he?

You see, back in 46 BC, the transition from the Roman calendar to the new Julian calendar required an entire year of 445 days! Yes, you heard me right, 445 days! And understandably, that year became known as the ‘year of confusion.’ But that’s just the beginning of this wild tale.

Julius Caesar, the man behind this change, had abolished a leap month called Mercedonius and renamed Quintilis (initially the fifth month) to Julius. His successor, Augustus, was so impressed with this that he did the same with Sextilis (initially the sixth month) and renamed it Augustus. But here’s where it gets really interesting. Augustus was dismayed to discover that Julius’ month had one more day than his, so he did what any self-respecting emperor would do: he took a day from February, the already shortest month, to ensure both months had the same length. In other words, the reason months are months is because of a competition between two men who couldn’t agree on whose testicles were bigger.

But let’s take a step back and think about the impact of all this. You see, many ancient civilizations used a 28-day lunar cycle, which wasn’t an accident. Humans have been living in harmony with natural cycles for over 150,000 years, and for most of that time, our survival depended on it. But the creation of artificial routines like weeks and months has detached us from the natural cycles we’ve grown accustomed to.

Take women, for example. The 28-day menstrual cycle aligns perfectly with the lunar cycle. In ancient times, before the construction of weeks and months, women would have their menstruation aligned with the new Moon and their ovulation aligned with the full Moon. Imagine the impact this might have had if all women’s menstrual cycles were aligned.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. This is all very interesting, but what does it all mean? Well, my dear audience, that’s a question for another time. Join me for the next part of this fascinating tale, where we’ll explore the true impact of artificial time on the human psyche and what we can do to reclaim our connection to the natural cycles that have sustained us for millennia. Until then, keep questioning everything, my friends!

Einstein's Riddle

Albert Einstein reckoned that only two percent of the population would be able to solve this riddle.

Can you?

1. In a street there are five houses, painted five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person of different nationality.
3. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.

The question is: Who owns the FISH ?

Hints

1. The Brit lives in a red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water.


Click HERE for the answer, but only when you're ready!

Becoming A Freethinker And A Scientist

By Albert Einstein

Taken from: Albert Einstein's Autobiographical Notes

Open Court Publishing Company,

LaSalle and Chicago, Illinois, 1979. pp 3-5.

When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in that chase. The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation, but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being.

As the first way out there was religion, which is implanted into every child by way of the traditional education-machine. Thus I came - though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents - to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment-an attitude that has never again left me, even though, later on, it has been tempered by a better insight into the causal connections.

It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the "merely personal," from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings. Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation, and I soon noticed that many a man whom I had learned to esteem and to admire had found inner freedom and security in its pursuit. The mental grasp of this extra-personal world within the frame of our capabilities presented itself to my mind, half consciously, half unconsciously, as a supreme goal. Similarly motivated men of the present and of the past, as well as the insights they had achieved, were the friends who could not be lost. The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it.

The Moon

The Moon has always been a source of wonder for me, even from when I was just a little boy, looking up at the night sky in awe. As a university student, I delved deeper into the subject and studied Geology, learning about how the Sun, Earth, and all the planets came to be. I was particularly fascinated by the Moon, and even then, in the late 1990s, there was still no clear explanation for how it formed. The most widely accepted theory at the time was that a proto-planet called Theia collided with the infant Earth in a catastrophic event about 4.5 billion years ago, but even this idea had significant flaws.

The mysteries surrounding the Moon don't stop there. The presence of titanium in lunar rock, the remarkable resonance of the lunar landscape, and its coincidentally precise orbit are just some of the features that defy conventional scientific understanding. This collection of quotes from scientists, authors, researchers, NASA insiders, and star-gazers captures just how extraordinary the Moon truly is. And this video takes it to an entirely new level, showcasing its awe-inspiring beauty and endless enigmas.

Perception

If we looked at the sky we'd both agree that it was blue, but would the colour we perceive in our minds be the same? 

Could your perception of blue be my orange, or your green, my red? It's an interesting concept and a difficult one to definitively prove either way. 

Our perception of what is 'real' is subject to... our perception! A beautiful paradox which Plato describes perfectly in the story of 'The Cave' 

It's truly mind-boggling to think about the subjectivity of our perception of reality. When I see the colour blue, do you see it the same way I do? We might both look up at the sky and agree that it's blue, but the blue that I experience could be different from the blue that you see.

What if your perception of blue is my orange, or my green is your red? The idea that two people can see the same thing and experience it differently is a fascinating concept, and one that has stumped philosophers and scientists for centuries.

This is where the idea of subjective reality comes into play. Our perception of what is "real" is determined by our own perception, and no two people will ever experience the same thing in exactly the same way. It's a beautiful paradox that has been described in the story of "The Cave" by Plato.

We live in a world that is constantly changing, and our perception of it is constantly evolving. It's important to remember that what is "real" to us might not be "real" to someone else, and that's okay. It's what makes our world so diverse and unique.